324 replies to this topic

[thelegg]

Hi all time for a little update, well I didn't make L2B but I did make it to the garage for the MOT which was all going grand until an over powering smell of petrol filled the garage and upon further inspection petrol was pouring out of the tank from the sender unit so it failed on that but everything else was fine apart from advisory on a couple ball joints. Since then it's been sat gathering dust as all my money has been put towards our wedding but now I'm happily married and back from a great honeymoon in Dublin so been starting to do odd bits n bobs again, most of my time at the moment has been spent making subframes for other people but hoping to make castle combe action day at the end of September :)

[thelegg]

Finally got it MOT'D ?

[thelegg]

Well time for an update, up bright and early for the 1hr journey upto castle combe,soon became apparent that I have a cooling issue once driving at 70mph for too long :/ so crawled to combe at 60mph on the motor way until the cd player stopped working so then my wife had to put up with my waffling for an hour much to her dismay haha. Made it to combe got sound checked and parked up with Torbay mini club and caught up with some old friends and met some new faces :)

So first track time, took my friend jake out and all seemed perfect plenty of torque with great handling, was just starting to get used to the track again, finding the engines limits. If I'm gonna be fussy I'd say the rev limiter comes in slightly too soon as I kept hitting it in 2nd gear upon exiting the corners apart from that slight flat spot in the middle of the rev rang but should be easily sorted when I get it remapped ? then I noticed the temp gauge had crept up so we exited the track 1 lap early.

Sat back down with lauren (my wife) only to find out there had been a crash, she said a grey clubman hit the tires pretty hard bouncing off really far. I don't think anyone was hurt but the car was pretty smashed in and the rear windscreen was popping out

Time for 2nd track time with Lauren as a passenger however whilst queuing we got pulled out by a rather rude marshall claiming that her legs weren't covered enough... maybe they should be more clear and state that tights/leggings aren't acceptable. Anyhoooo decided to watch a few more laps before heading home with my shinny new headlinning I bought ? so all in all a really good day with only a few small issues to sort

[l_jonez]

The clubman that crashed was another 16 valver, at least he managed to drive it away

[paulrockliffe]

Awesome, nice one! Is that my subframe up there??

[thelegg]

Awesome, nice one! Is that my subframe up there??

Yes it is :) should get your driveshafts in the next couple of weeks to

[thelegg]

Guess I should update this as it's been ages, haven't really had that much time on it due to work and other stuff but basically been going round in circles with it.

So from the beggining, I ripped the whole cooling system out and went for a front mounted radiator to try and get more airflow through to aid cooling





But I then couldn't get it to stay at a nice temp whilst idling and it kept getting air locks so I ripped it all back out again and fitted the radiator back at the side with a better fan and made some stainless steel ducting to pickup air from the grill and force it through the radiator





Now it stays perfect temperature whilst idling so need to get it out on the road for some proper tests at different speeds.T hen the battery decided it wasn't going to hold charge anymore so had to order a new one which I fitted today so hopefully get it road testing in the next couple of weeks

[fuzzy-hair-man]

I fitted a little 12v LED that points at me when driving that tells me when the thermo fan turns on. Easy to wire and let's me know if the fan is doing what it's supposed to and if the cooling system is coping. It was supposed to be temporary but I think it m might stay there.

[thelegg]

I fitted a little 12v LED that points at me when driving that tells me when the thermo fan turns on. Easy to wire and let's me know if the fan is doing what it's supposed to and if the cooling system is coping. It was supposed to be temporary but I think it m might stay there.

My fan is just wired permanent on at the moment as I'm yet to trace the wires for the original fan from the ECU

[fuzzy-hair-man]

What wiring loom have you used? If it's the micra one there's a relay for the fan in the longer box from near the battery (in the micra cg13de 95ish). The one here I come think is a blue with black trace for power and a black for earth.

[thelegg]

Yeah I chopped down the Micra loom but accidently stripped out the fan wiring, believe we spoke on the Micra sports forum about the fan wiring and where the fuses are etc but that's as far as I got with it,

On a positive note I took the mini out this evening for a drive and it kept perfect temperature even cruising at 70mph :) so next steps are to just generally tidy up cosmetic things in time for IMM

[fuzzy-hair-man]

Yeah I chopped down the Micra loom but accidently stripped out the fan wiring, believe we spoke on the Micra sports forum about the fan wiring and where the fuses are etc but that's as far as I got with it,

I just looked at the wiring diagram I have and the relay is triggered by pins 45(LG/R light green / red) and 9(red) on the ecu plug. I'm not sure why there's 2 triggering wires, maybe it's a redundancy thing or so it can trigger for different reasons? It triggers/switches on earth so after this you'd just need power to your relay.
Ps this was for the facelift micra.
The wire goes red further down the loom the other side of a plug.

[thelegg]

I'm guessing the relay is in the big fuse box normally found in the engine bay near the battery?

[fuzzy-hair-man]

Yeah, there's 2 boxes on mine, the larger houses the relays, the smaller has the fuses. Rad fan relay(black) is closest to the smaller fuse box. The one next to it is the ECCS engine control relay (green).

[thelegg]

Time for a revival :) so the last time I drove the mini was to the very wet and windy imm in Bristol. I can't fault it, it drove perfectly so smiles all round. Then i went to wash it a couple days later and was met by a puddle of brake fluid when I opened the garage door later found out that my front brake caliper was leaking from an internal seal.

Jump forward a year as that's how long I left it for lol and I decided to strip the caliper



but disaster struck and 1 of the bolts snapped off inside the caliper



Rather than mess about with them myself I decided I'd ship them off to KAD who rebuilt them for me super quick so very happy with them super service!



Refitted them and bled the system so hopefully they will be good for years now :) decided to start on the body work after this so started stripping it all down ready for paint prep/filler work

Front end stripped


Windscreen out and scuttle taken back to bare metal/primed



Chucked some filler on the A panels


As you can see still got the IMM mud on the doors haha